


Creatures of Habit

by ChellaC



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Dermatillomania, Excoriation Disorder, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mercy and Roadhog look after their strange child, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChellaC/pseuds/ChellaC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eking out a living in the irradiated Outback makes for a perfect breeding ground for all manner of bad habits and coping mechanisms, of which Junkrat has his fair share.<br/>Roadhog wants his boss to stop making his job harder than it needs to be, while for once Junkrat just wants to be left alone with his lack of chill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creatures of Habit

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This story is based on my own experiences with excoriation disorder, which is a compulsive urge to pick at one's skin, often classified as part of OCD due to its repetitive nature and the anxiety it both relieves and causes. People who have dermatillomania (another term for the disorder) often engage in the behavior because the repetition relieves stress, but it then becomes a habit which leads to significant distress as it is extremely difficult to stop and is very noticeable by others. I headcanon Junkrat to have some form of OCD (it's an anxiety disorder which can surface due to stressful situations, I think he's had his fair share of those) and given the health concerns due to radiation, I can see it manifesting as an obsession with his skin--some people with dermatillomania pick to remove perceived imperfections or potentially harmful blemishes, such as a normal freckle they may be convinced is the beginnings of cancer. It's an anxiety/impulse control disorder...if that's not Junkrat I dunno what is.  
> Given all that, if you have this disorder please read with caution; I don't want to instigate an episode or anything.  
> The teen and up rating is for some cursing and mildly graphic descriptions (Junkrat did grow up in a what equates to a post-apocalyptic wasteland after all).  
> Any comments/critiques/corrections are much appreciated! I hope ya'll enjoy this story.

Junkrat stumbled into the room and flopped onto the large, unmade bed. It was far more comfortable than the ones he and Roadhog had shared in hotels while on their global travels, and worlds away from the grimy mattresses or dirty blankets they’d slept on in the Outback. He was not too proud to admit that joining Overwatch had its perks.

Back then, sharing the bed had been more about economy and safety than anything else--after all, he was paying Hog to protect him, and the man couldn’t very well do that if they were in different rooms. Now it was one part safety one part comfort. Junkrat had his own room, but he hadn’t used it since the first night, when he’d found himself twitchy and unable to relax without the other man in the room.

He sighed into the mattress, hoping Roadhog would hurry up with dinner and come to bed. Junkrat himself was dead tired after their mission, one of the first the two had been sent on, and though he felt sure it had been a success, there was still a tight knot of stress twisting in his stomach. Junkrat rolled onto his side and found himself facing his own reflection in the small mirror hanging above the dresser in which their few articles of clothing were haphazardly shoved. He sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed, peering at a small bump on his neck. Beneath the soot and dirt it was impossible to tell what it was. He brought his flesh hand to his skin and began to scratch until blood caught under his nails, and then continued.

It had started years ago during the long hours holed up in whatever shaded shelter he could find to hide in during the sweltering days. He’d run his hands--he’d had both back then--over his skin, his mind blank save for the droning buzz which ate him up inside whenever it got too quiet, hollowed him out. He’d feel the scrapes and scratches, bumps that might have been acne but could also very well be the beginnings of tumorous growths, could be his skin bubbling with radiation and he really should get that off before it killed him. So he’d scratch. He’d chew his nails down to the quick to pass the time and when the anxious buzz still thrummed inside him, he’d chew the skin around the nails, too. Anything to quiet it.

But it was never enough. Feeding the temptation did not, as he’d hoped, lessen the urges to maim himself--it only made them stronger. Soon the smallest glimpse of his own reflection was enough to send his fingers scrabbling for something to pick at, for the evil ugly sickness he knew was growing on his skin, and if he could only remove it, he’d be ok, he’d live another day, he wouldn’t become like the walking corpses he’d seen rotten with infection and radiation.

The habit was not out of place in the ravaged Outback where he lived. He consoled himself with the knowledge that far worse pathologies had been born from that hellish wasteland. He knew a girl who’d died because she refused to leave the dilapidated gas station she’d holed up in, even when the food was gone and the water ran sour because she was convinced stepping outside would kill her, that the mere touch of the sun and the air and sand would rot the skin off her body, turn her organs to mush, and nothing anybody said could convince her otherwise. Maybe she was right, Junkrat thought, maybe it was just more slow acting than she’d guessed. Maybe his neuroses wasn’t so different from hers for the same reason, maybe he’d eventually skin himself alive and end up just as dead, just not as quickly.

Maybe he’s a melodramatic twat and needs to go for a walk, drink some water, blow something up.

At first it wasn’t a big deal. He barely noticed he was doing it. Getting bloodstains on a couple shirts on the few days he decided to wear one was no tragedy, it was bound to happen. So maybe it wasn’t such a good idea exposing dozens of open sores to grime and chemicals every day, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, or wanted to--the relief he got from picking at his skin outweighed the worry it gave him, at least for a while.

Roadhog didn’t agree.

They sat one night by their fire deep in the bush, enjoying the warmth which warded off the cold that seemed to rise up ghost-like from the desert, and the smoke which offered a reprieve from mosquitoes and other biting insects. Roadhog was staring into the flames, their glow reflected in the lenses of his mask, while Junkrat prattled on about the day’s exploits and the sights he hoped to see and those he hoped to ruin when they left Australia. The larger man offered the occasional hum of approval or admonishing grunt. Suddenly he turned and grabbed Junkrat’s mechanical arm. Junkrat froze and felt himself flush with embarrassment beneath his layer of grime. Then he was flushing from anger. Why should he feel embarrassed? In front of his bodyguard, of all people, who’d seen him trip over his own damn peg and faceplant in the sand? That hadn’t embarrassed him--he’d laughed right along with Roadhog before pushing himself off and brushing off the dust.

“Stop,” said Roadhog.

“Stop what? You stop, mate, you’re the one holding my bloody arm.” Junkrat’s pulse pounded. He hadn’t caught himself using the metal hand to pick his skin before, had consciously avoided doing so. And now he felt warm blood trickling down his neck from the wound he’d scratched on his scalp at the base of his hairline.

“You’re still doing it,” said Roadhog. “I’ve seen you doing it for weeks.”

Junkrat yanked his other arm away from his back and held it in his lap, clenched his hand into a fist to hide his trembling. “What’s the deal, huh? You my babysitter now? There a problem here?”

“No. But your hands are disgusting and if you get an infection, then we have a big problem.”

“Whatever,” Junkrat snarled. He felt Roadhog loosen his grip on his wrist and snatched it away before lacing his fingers in his lap. He hunched his shoulders and glared at the fire, skin crawling.

There was silence for a moment before Roadhog said, “Do you have lice or something? Because we can fix that pretty quick.”

“I don’t have bugs. Well. I don’t think so.”

“Junkrat,” said Roadhog, startling the other man, who was still unused to his partner calling him by his name, even if it was just an alias. “Are you on drugs?”

“I’m not a fucking druggie, you big cunt, just drop it, yeah? Geez, what’s made you so chatty all of a sudden? To think I wanted you to talk to me, go back to being quiet, for Christ Sake.”

“Just needed to check. I should know about these kinds of things now.”

“It’s nothing, it’s none of your business.”

“It will be if I have to hack off your other arm when it ends up full of maggots.”

Junkrat fisted his hands in his hair, biting his tongue to keep from screaming incoherently at Roadhog. “I said it’s nothing, would you shut up? Lay off me!”

Roadhog, for all his gruffness, seemed to senses he’d struck a nerve. He grunted and passed their canteen to Junkrat, who snatched it and guzzled the water, letting it dribble down his face and go wasted in the dirt, all the while staring Roadhog down, daring him to take the water away. He didn’t.

He didn’t mention it again until a hotel room in Tokyo. Junkrat had gone into the bathroom and caught sight of himself in the mirror. With the grime washed off he could see the extent of the damage to his pockmarked skin, covered with scabs.

Roadhog banged on the door. “You drowned in there?”

“What?”

“It’s been an hour.”

Junkrat blinked. He looked down at his shaking hands, streaked with blood. “Um. I’m fine, Roadie, sorry. I’ll be out in a minute.”

He wiped the blood away as best he could but his skin was still red and inflamed. Nothing for it. He shoved the door open and sauntered out, flopping onto the bed. He stared at the ceiling, ignoring the feeling of Roadhog staring at him. He hummed a tune which gradually died out and was replaced by a scowl and increasingly agitated fidgeting as Roadhog’s silent attention got the best of him. The older man had pulled this trick before, usually to reprimand Junkrat and force an apology out of him.

Junkrat snapped. “Alright! So I have a little problem! What’s the big deal, what am I getting the death glare for? What’s it matter if I, you know, it’s not as if I’m not already scarred all to hell, you know? Nobody expects me to look anything other than disgusting, anyhow!” Junkrat laughed. “Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that! It’s funny. You can laugh, you know it’s funny.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you do it?”

“It feels good.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Yeah, so am I,” said Junkrat, sitting up and unstrapping his prosthetic leg, then the arm, before lying back on the bed. “Because it feels. I don’t know. Like I have to, like all these nerves are building up and that’s the only way to get them out, you know? Like why we blow things up and steal and wreck stuff.”

“That’s why you do it?”

“Oh, shove off. I don’t know, mate, I’m fucked up in the head, what do you want me to say?”

“Just the truth.”

“Well that’s what I told you. Talk about something else now.”

“Without all the dirt you look like a kid.”

“And you still look like a scary old man, what can I tell ya.”

Roadhog sighed and leaned down to take the nailpolish from his bag. “Hold still,” he said, grabbing Junkrat’s hand. “Pick this off instead.”

 

When they joined Overwatch, it took a while for the heroes to notice. Junkrat attributed the slow uptake to their low opinion of him as some kind of radiation-crazed lunatic, which, well. Fair enough. But then he’d catch them glancing at him, or in Symmetra’s case glaring disgustedly, during meetings when all the sitting still and being quiet gave his hands license to wander up to his shoulders and peel off the mangled skin there. There were ten times as many instances for him to get stuck in front of mirrors, and now that showers with clean water were readily available there was no grime to hide it.  

It was fine, he told himself, it was such a little thing and he’d never given it so much thought before, why now? He answered himself: because now he was around people his own age like Lucio and Hana, people he wanted to be able to look at and see something of himself, some part of himself that was whole and lovable and if he could only find it he could catch it, drag it to the surface and show it off like a cat with a dead bird, proof that he wasn’t the worst of their opinions, because this part of him was still there, too. But he couldn’t.

Back in his room, Junkrat watched his own hands going over his skin as though they weren’t his. “Don’t,” he said. He rolled over onto his other side, facing away from the mirror, and forced his hands to lie still in front of him. He picked at a loose thread in the sheets.

The door burst open with Roadhog’s customary forcefulness and the large man squeezed into the room. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

“What took you so long?” Junkrat said, uncurling and sitting up.

“Was talking to Mercy,” said Roadhog.

Junkrat grinned. “What’s she want?”

“To talk about you.”

The grin faltered, then grew wider, showing an unsettling amount of teeth. “I hope you told her all the good stuff. She’s a little old for me, but I’ll give it a try.”

Roadhog unfolded the fingers of one huge fist and dropped its contents onto the bed in front of Junkrat, who eyed them as though they were a live grenade. “What’s all that?”

“That’s some kinda disinfectant. She says put it on your wounds before you go to bed. Those are to give your hands something to do other than pick your skin. She said if you want to talk to her she’d be happy to help.”

Junkrat blinked dumbly up at the other man, then laughed. “As if you weren’t bad enough, now I’ve got mother hen on my case too? What gives, Roadie, huh? You two gonna adopt me?”

“You couldn’t pay me enough to do that.”

“What’s this supposed to be?” Junkrat said, picking up the other object from the bed, a plastic loop strung with beads. He wrapped it twice around his wrist like a bracelet. “Oh, Roadie, it’s beautiful, you shouldn’t have.”

“It’s not a bracelet.”

Junkrat, already fiddling with the strand as though he’d been wearing it for years, just waved him off. “Yeah yeah, sure. As touching as this has been, you better not go around talking about me to everybody if you don’t wanna get fired, mate. I’ll let Mercy slide since you’ve got the hots for her, but just this once.”

“How generous.”

“I know...thank you though.”

Roadhog grunts. The noncommittal sound puts them back in familiar territory and Junkrat laughs, lying back down on the bed. Whatever the thing inside his head which makes him want to mutilate himself is, now it’s got Roadhog to deal with. Junkrat does not envy it, not one bit.


End file.
